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Eye on Psi Chi: Winter 1997

GREs and GPAs: The Numbers Game in Graduate Admissions

John C. Norcross, University of Scranton (PA)

The
pervasive but unspoken anxiety of most undergraduate psychology majors
contemplating application to graduate school is whether they possess the
"right stuff." By this they refer to academic credentials,
principally the dreaded Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores and grade
point averages (GPAs) valued by graduate admission committees. I have met and
counseled hundreds of prospective graduate students over the years who cling
tenaciously to such anxiety-provoking myths as "You need at least a 3.7
and a 1,300 to get into a doctoral program" and "It's not even worth
applying to graduate school if you only have a 3.2 GPA." Unfortunately,
the anxiety is magnified by the paucity of published data on what graduate
programs expect from their incoming students in terms of grades and entrance
examination scores.

This
article, the first in a series of three, summarizes recent information on the
graduate application process in an effort to enhance informed and data-based
choices on your part. Our study analyzed all the numerical data in the 1994
edition of Graduate
Study in Psychology (American Psychological Association, 1994),
which reports information from the 1992-93 academic year. A total of 458
institutions, 559 departments, and 2,023 graduate programs in the United States
and Canada were included in our analysis. Details and limitations of the
methodology are presented in our lengthy American Psychologist
article (Norcross, Hanych, & Terranova, 1996).

Indeed,
we discovered that the two most heavily weighted numerical or
"objective" variables in the graduate admissions process are the
applicant's scores on the Graduate Record Examination and grade point average.
Following are the general rules of this numbers game.

The
entrance examinations refer primarily to the Graduate Record Examination (GRE)
and secondarily to the Miller Analogies Test (MAT). Ninety-three percent of
reporting doctoral departments and 81% of the master's departments required GRE
general test scores. Forty-nine percent of doctoral departments and 32% of
master's departments required GRE psychology subject test scores. Twelve
percent of reporting doctoral departments and 15% of master's departments
required MAT scores. We did not conduct any further analyses on MAT scores
given the relatively small number of schools requiring them.

Table 1
presents the minimum required and actual GRE scores of incoming graduate
students in psychology. These statistics are displayed separately for
master's-only and doctoral departments. The minimum required Verbal plus
Quantitative score averaged 1,090 for doctoral departments and 984 for master's
departments. The actual Verbal plus Quantitative scores of incoming graduate
students averaged 1,206 for doctoral departments and 1,033 for master's
departments. Less than half the number of departments providing data on GRE
Verbal and Quantitative scores reported GRE Analytical scores, but they
averaged 638 for students entering doctoral-level departments and 555 for
students entering master's-level departments. The actual GRE psychology test
score averaged 624 for incoming doctoral students and 549 for incoming master's
students.

Inspection
of this table reveals a number of interesting patterns between master's and
doctoral departments. Doctoral departments required higher minimum GRE scores
and secured higher actual GRE scores among their accepted students than did
master's departments. For required minimum scores on the GRE subtests, the
average difference was 57 or 58 points; for actual scores on the GRE subtests,
the average difference was approximately 80 points, again favoring the doctoral
departments. Similar trends were evident on the GRE psychology subject test as
well.

Graduate
departments also regularly required grade point averages in making admissions
decisions. In fact, over three-quarters required the overall or cumulative
undergraduate grade point average. Fewer departments required psychology grade
point averages (50% of doctoral departments, 55% of master's departments) and
last-two-years grade point averages (54% of doctoral departments, 57% of
master's departments).

Table 1
also displays the minimum required and actual grade point averages for
first-year graduate students in psychology. Incoming doctoral students averaged
a 3.5 overall GPA and 3.6 psychol-ogy GPA, whereas incoming master's students
averaged a 3.2 overall GPA and a 3.4 psychology GPA. The mean and median GPAs
required for admission consideration hovered around 3.0 for both master's and
doctoral departments.

To
sum up: The vast majority of graduate programs in psychology will require GRE
scores, and the minimum expected Verbal plus Quantitative score is 1,000 for
master's departments and 1,100 for doctoral departments. The mean scores of
incoming students are about 1,040 for master's-level students and 1,200 for
doctoral students. Incoming doctoral students average a 3.5 undergraduate grade
point, incoming master's students, a 3.2.

Of
course, you will need to employ your hard-earned statistical sagacity in
interpreting these findings: means and medians need to be interpreted in terms
of variability, and I do not wish to dissuade anyone from pursuing their
calling because of an occasional low score (Norcross, Sayette, & Mayne,
1996). Nonetheless, your knowledge of the numbers game in the admission process
is indispensable for making informed choices about your graduate education and
career goal--not to mention reducing that anxiety level!

John
C. Norcross, PhD, is
professor of psychology at the University of Scranton, where he has served as
Psi Chi faculty advisor for the past 10 years. The following feature article
(the first in a series of three) is based on his recent American Psychologist
article, "Graduate Study in Psychology: 1992-1993." Dr. Norcross also
is the senior author of Insider's Guide to Graduate Programs in Clinical and
Counseling Psychology (1996).

Eye on Psi Chi is a magazine designed to keep members
and alumni up-to-date with all the latest information about Psi Chi’s programs,
awards, and chapter activities. It features informative articles about careers,
graduate school admission, chapter ideas, personal development, the various
fields of psychology, and important issues related to our discipline.